Go to the Naveta des Tudons, the best-preserved boat-shaped burial chamber on the island — the interior is closed to protect it

Find a taula: two enormous dressed slabs set in a T, a monument type found only on Menorca and nowhere else in the world

Work out that nobody has settled what the taulas were for, which is unusual for a monument this size

Climb a talayot, the stone towers the whole culture is named after

Work out the density: over 1,500 prehistoric sites on 700 square kilometres of island

Menorca has the densest concentration of prehistoric monuments anywhere in the Mediterranean — over 1,500 sites on an island of 700 square kilometres. The navetas are the oldest: boat-shaped stone burial chambers from before the Talayotic period, and the Naveta des Tudons near Ciutadella is the best preserved. Then come the talayots, stone towers, and the taulas, T-shaped megaliths of two enormous dressed slabs found only on this island and nowhere else on earth. Nobody knows for certain what the taulas were for.

Talayotic Menorca: Three Thousand Years of Stone

Walk at least one full stage of the GR 223, which circles the entire island in twenty of them

Work out where the path came from — possibly the 14th century, more probably the French occupations, and argued over ever since

Do a northern stage and a southern one and compare them — pale limestone and white sand in the south, dark slate and clay in the north

Reach a cove that has no road to it, which is most of the best ones on this island

Find out what reopening it took: a full government restoration in two stages costing over €1.7 million, completed in May 2011

The Camí de Cavalls is an ancient path that encircles Menorca — 186 kilometres, twenty stages, possibly created in the 14th century though the most accepted theory credits the French occupations. It fell out of use and was argued over for decades, then the government restored the whole thing at a cost of over €1.7 million across two stages, finishing in May 2011, and it is now the GR 223. It passes every kind of coast the island has: limestone in the south with white sand coves, dark slate and clay in the north with almost nobody on it. Menorca has been a UNESCO biosphere reserve since October 1993.

The Camí de Cavalls: Right Round Menorca on Foot

Work out why the capital moved to Maó in 1708 and what that preserved here

Find out what happened in 1558 when the Ottoman fleet took the town

Come for Sant Joan in June and watch the horses reared upright in the Plaça des Born

Walk the old town, which is Catalan Gothic and Baroque rather than Georgian

Go down to the long narrow harbour and work out why the British preferred Maó's

Ciutadella was the capital of Menorca until the British took the island in 1708 and moved the capital to Maó for the harbour — which is why Ciutadella kept its Spanish and Catalan character while Maó acquired sash windows. The Ottoman fleet sacked it in 1558 and carried off most of the population, an event the town still commemorates. Its Sant Joan festival in June is one of the oldest and wildest in the Mediterranean: horses reared upright into a packed crowd in the Plaça des Born, done by riders whose families have done it for generations.

Ciutadella: The Menorca Britain Did Not Choose

Eat caldereta de llagosta in Fornells, where it comes from

Work out why it costs what it does — pot-caught spiny lobster off an exposed north coast

Walk out to the Torre de Fornells, the defensive tower guarding the mouth of the inlet

Sail or windsurf the bay, which is long, sheltered and reliably windy

Walk a stretch of the Camí de Cavalls along the tramuntana coast either side of the inlet

Fornells sits at the head of a long natural inlet on Menorca's north coast — the tramuntana side, which is rockier, windier and far less built on than the south. The village is a fishing port and the dish it is known for is caldereta de llagosta, spiny lobster stewed in a clay pot with onion, tomato and garlic, eaten with bread. It is the most expensive thing on most Menorcan menus, and the reason is simply that the lobster has to be caught in pots off this coast.

Fornells and the Menorcan Tramuntana Coast

Take a boat the length of the harbour and work out how six kilometres of sheltered water changed the island's history

Find the sash windows and the fanlights in the old town and work out which century put them there

Go to the gin distillery in the port and find out why Menorcan gin is made from wine spirit rather than grain

Cross to the Illa del Llatzeret or La Mola and see what was built to defend the harbour

Work out why Britain wanted this island, and what seventy years of naval base and smuggling did to the town

The natural harbour at Maó runs six kilometres inland, and its position in the western Mediterranean is why Phoenicians, Greeks, Turks and eventually the British all came for it. Britain captured Menorca in 1708 during the War of the Spanish Succession, was formally given it at Utrecht, and held it for seventy years, using Maó as a naval base and turning the town — by then the island capital — into a major trading and smuggling centre. The British influence is still visible in the local architecture — sash windows above all — and Menorcan gin, distilled from wine spirit rather than grain, is still made in the port.

Maó: Six Kilometres of Natural Harbour

Walk up through the gate of the walled village to the chapel at the top

Find the Torre d'en Nunis, the Muslim tower that was here before the conquest

Look across the channel towards Menorca and work out how a few bonfires won an island

Capdepera's castle crowns a 159-metre hill two kilometres from the east coast of Mallorca, a walled village of about 8,000 square metres climbing from its gate to the chapel of Nostra Senyora de l'Esperança at the top. When James I took Mallorca in 1229 only one Muslim tower stood here, the Torre d'en Nunis. Needing his troops for Valencia, he had huge bonfires lit on this hill, visible from Menorca, so that the island's Muslim rulers would think an army was camped here ready to invade; the trick worked, and the Treaty of Capdepera let them stay on Menorca as tributaries of the Crown. James II built the walled village in 1300 to repopulate the east of the island.

Capdepera: The Bonfires That Took Menorca

Drive or ride the 13.5 kilometres from Port de Pollença, built by Antonio Parietti in 1925

Stop at the Mirador des Colomer and look down 200-odd metres at the rock stack offshore

Go out to the lighthouse of 1863 at the end and work out how they got the materials there

Walk down to Cala Figuera or Cala Murta, the coves on the south side of the peninsula

Work out why the road is the attraction as much as the cape is

Formentor is the northernmost point of Mallorca, a long thin finger of the Serra de Tramuntana running out into the sea with cliffs up to 300 metres. The lighthouse went up in 1863 and getting materials out to that headland was the hard part. The road — 13.5 kilometres from Port de Pollença to the cape — was built by the Mallorcan engineer Antonio Parietti in 1925, and it is one of the great pieces of road engineering in the Mediterranean, cut and bent along the spine of the peninsula.

Cap de Formentor: The Road Along the Cliff

Ride the Ferrocarril de Sóller from Palma through thirteen tunnels in the original wooden carriages

Take the open-sided tram of 1913 from Sóller down through the streets to Port de Sóller

Work out why the line exists: the orange growers built it themselves to get their fruit off an island valley with no road worth using

Drink a fresh orange juice in the Plaça and find the Modernista bank and church front by a pupil of Gaudí

Walk up to the Mirador de Ses Barques above the port for the view back down the valley

Sóller sits in a bowl in the Tramuntana that was effectively cut off from the rest of Mallorca until 1912, when the orange growers paid for their own railway and drove thirteen tunnels through the mountain to reach Palma. It is still running, on the original wooden rolling stock, and it is one of the great short train journeys in Europe. At the other end an open-sided tram of 1913 rattles down through the town to the port. The valley is still full of orange and lemon groves, which is what the railway was built to move.